Enterprises use documents to communicate with internal and external customers as well as to regulate and control process flows. Within a process, documents are used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the process while providing a primary interface within the process. Dialogue, a software product from Exstream Software, continues to prove it can effectively and dramatically lower cost in the production process of high value documents. Further, Dialogue enables the document itself to be highly personalized and customized to a specific process or to a specific end customer.
As a customer, employee or agent of the enterprise, users interact with numerous documents through the course of business. For example, customer service representatives (CSRs) interact with correspondence systems to create customized letters, insurance agents customize group policies, employees fill out forms for HR processes, and sales people create tailored proposals. These document systems share common requirements. All of these systems attempt to provide some level of control to ensure the document is completed accurately. Inaccurate documents at a minimum have a high cost to the enterprise and can result in severe consequences if sent externally to a customer. Consider a scenario where a proposal with inaccurate pricing was sent to a prospect. In one case, the cost will be too high and potentially risk the customer acquisition. In another, goods and services may be ‘given away’. Either case has significant impact to the bottom line.
In addition to providing control, interactive document systems are required to provide a flexible user environment. End users need the ability to enter information and data freely, where appropriate. Familiar editing environments allow adoption of systems within the enterprise to occur rapidly. Rapid adoption drives cost down when alternative systems are eliminated and propels the business in the right direction with improved user productivity.
Today's enterprise systems that have been implemented to support the control and flexibility requirements for interactive documents span a range of functionality from highly structured electronic forms possibly created in Adobe PDF to unstructured free form documents which might be created within Microsoft Word.
Systems that require very specific data collection have been built upon electronic form solutions. While control can be provided in e-form based solutions, the user is typically not provided a very flexible or personalized interaction. Consider that fields are usually not pre-filled causing redundant, unnecessary human interaction. Also, each customer or employee receives the same form, even if portions are irrelevant to them based on their situation.
In addition to failing to meet user flexibility requirements, the integration of desktop forms solutions into the enterprise's systems and production processes requires manual processing or very complex process steps wired together to provide a level of automation. In reality, the purpose of the form is typically to facilitate some larger process. Consider the following examples from both the enterprise and customer perspectives.                John Smith decides to open an account at his current financial institution for his son Tommy. John fills out a blank form. As he completes the form he initially becomes confused about the applicability of required information but eventually completes the form and submits it. Several days later Tommy receives a packet of disclosure statements and welcome letter in the mail.        After they received the account open form and deposit for Tommy's account, the financial institution extracted the data from the form, validated it, entered it into various systems, manually determined what needed to be sent to Tommy, picked and packed the material (including the welcome letter), printed it and mailed it.        Or, an employee experience . . .        Sally Jones, who is single, needs to go through the benefits open enrollment process with her company to select options for next year. She fills out a blank form indicating what coverage she'd like to have changed from the current year. The problem is that she doesn't recall her current coverage and needs to cross reference other information forwarded from HR. With that information in hand, she completes the form, skipping the portions related to family benefits.        The employer must process all employee forms within a relatively short timeframe. The data entered needs to be extracted and re-keyed into a consolidated document for submission and processing by the provider. A copy of all completed forms is retained to ensure any discrepancy in the future can be resolved. Confirmation of the employee's benefits is not sent back because the employee was expected to retain their own copy.        
Both examples illustrate the requirement for control to ensure appropriate selections and complete information is provided. Without structure and control provided by the form the downstream processes cannot be driven. The customer experience is clearly shown to be unsatisfactory however. Coincidentally, there are different classes of interactive applications that have put more value on providing user editing flexibility at the cost of less control. Correspondence, sales proposal, contract, and group policy systems currently provide a flexible document editing experience through the incorporation of MS Word or some other desktop editor. These systems attempt to address the control requirements through the use of MS Word macros or some other customization, but fall short in providing a scaleable solution that ensures that enterprise requirements are fully satisfied. Consequently, a need exists for a superactive document, utilizable in a computer-implemented processes such as user interaction, printing, storage, communication with other entities, and submission to enterprise processes such as document creation, forms utilization, order fulfillment, customer service handling, accounting, marketing, personnel management, and a myriad of other enterprise- and organization-specific tasks and activities.
For these and other reasons, a need exists for the present invention.